Call for circumcision safeguards after baby death

[SerendipityJane]

No excuse in the UK. Ever.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqj2r8x2k4yo

I think that we should go further and prosecute parents who allow their son to have the procedure (unless for medical reasons). Yes, i mean all/any so called religious beliefs too. It has to stop and prosecute anyone involved.

well said

Regardless of personal views on the validity of circumcision, the fact that parents would allow their child to be cut by some unqualified person with a dirty knife, which let's be blunt, is exactly what happened, is horrifying.

It's completely misplaced in 2026 and must be outlawed.

I am just telling you what she told us. She definitely said Christianity because I remember being quite shocked. My guess is that it is cultural for her and also linked to her branch of Christianity.

Don’t be so insulting and ignorant (both posts). There are plenty of religious people who don’t believe in such harmful practices and there are plenty of non-religious people who do act in harmful ways.

Well, once he's 18 he can do whatever he wants to his penis. But until then it is absolutely the responsibility of the parents and I would agree that if a minor, male or female, is found to have mutilated genitals, the parents should absolute be prosecuted.

I belive it's not ethically right unless for medical reasons where there is no other suitable option.

However I now have a son of Jewish ethnicity and he is having numerous foreskin issues. I am now wondering whether those of Jewish descent are just predisposed to this because talking to all my other white British relatives no one has ever heard of these problems.

It's not done for medical reasons so I doubt it.

???

Are you a Jehovah's witness?
Judging someone for refusing a simple medical procedure to prevent death (which is what would have happened) is not insulting.

I don’t disagree that anyone involved in mutilating their child should be prosecuted. The problem is that there are cases where parents (mainly women) are forced to hand over their child or they are circumcised without one/both parents’ knowledge.

I would need to be prosecuted for my actions if anyone dared try and harm one of my children but I am not in the position of having an abusive partner/family/religion.

What is the actual reason religiously do you know? My partner is Jewish by blood (his maternal grandmother came over as a child in the war). So they aren’t actually Jewish culturally or religiously so we don’t know much about that side of things.

But yes these foreskin issues have made me question whether it’s something Jewish are predisposed too. It is a race as well as a religion.

Disgusting proves nothing has changed despite the passage of time. worse is female circumcision, which is still carried out

"However I now have a son of Jewish ethnicity and he is having numerous foreskin issues. "

A lot of this could be due to ignorance of penis health especially as foreskin issues used to be routinely written off as needing a circumcision.

Foreskins need to be retracted regularly to be cleaned underneath. This isn't usually possible until age 5+ and even at that age that can be adhesions which will be loosened over time.

If the for skin is not retracted regularly by the time puberty and erections hit the penis develops and grows but the foreskin will not be stretched /develop and neither will the frenulum.

The harm done by religious circumcision is trivial compare to cousin marriage.

They're not predisposed to it.

I'm 56 and I know of 3 non Jewish men who had tight foreskin problems and opted as adults to get it sorted.

You'll have to look up the reason for Jewish circumcision (although they're not the only religion that do it), as the explanation will be a lot more concise than mine would be.

FGM can be much much worse but we don't accept any level of FGM. The only acceptable amount of child genital mutilation is zero.

Religion should only apply where personal choice exists, not where the law steps in. As a parent I don't have 100% autonomy in my decisions - if I chose to do something that actively harmed my children the state would (hopefully) step in.

He’s 3. So no we are not retracting the foreskin. It’s too tight to retract anyway. It balloons when he urinates.

He is potty trained. Has a bath every night. Yet has pain and infections starting atleast once a week and is having to use steroid cream regularly. That can’t be good either IMO. So we have been questioning whether circumcision is something we should consider.

If you have any extra tips please let me know. The doctor has said we are doing everything we can but if you know something else then absolutely please share!

It is considered to be the sign of the covenant / agreement between God and the Jewish people, as first undertaken by Abraham who is, essentially,
considered to be the “first Jew”. It has a large amount of cultural significance which is why even very secular Jews often circumcise, although there is more pushback now than there used to be. As with a lot of religious practice, though, whatever the religious explanation is you can often find a historic social explanation for why the practice may have arisen and the prevention of infection is likely one of them here - obviously it originates in a very different historical era that wouldn’t be considered to provide the same medical justification now with modern hygiene and medicine but there is plenty of evidence that make circumcision has a material impact on transmission of HIV in Africa, for example. So may be the anthropological explanation of why it arose.

Thanks. I have googled and it’s basically coming up as ‘god said so’. So yes that’s firmly in the religious category.

slaughterhouses can also legally perform animal cruelty because of halal meat

The vast majority of animals slaughtered for halal meat are pre-stunned in the UK.

https://www.rspca.org.uk/adviceandwelfare/farm/slaughter/religiousslaughter

Safeguards are a good start but really it needs to be illegal.

It needs to be completely banned.

You can get topical steroid cream that helps with foreskin tightness

Nor is religion and intelligence, or even compassion.

It’s time humanity grew out of belief in sky fairies.

My religion demands that anyone who physically mutilates a baby should be immediately executed.